I Can't Exist Without Killing Myself
by scarysnapey
Summary: What if Draco Malfoy managed to kill Dumbledore? Severus and Harry are on the run. They can trust no one, but can they learn to trust each other?
1. The Beginning

**Where Draco surprises everyone, carefully crafted plans fall apart, and Severus prepares himself for an indefinite amount of time spent with Harry.**

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* * *

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He holds it like a smoking gun.

And everyone is so shocked that for several agonizing seconds, they all just stand and stare. He stares, too, at the wand stuck out in front of him as though he never meant for it to happen.

A flash of green light.

The body tipping, falling, flying for a moment, and disappearing into the mist. Descending toward the ground.

In some indescribable way everything has gone horribly wrong. In a trifle over lost seconds, Draco Malfoy seems to have damned us all.

In a flash of green light, the plan is about to change.

_You're too late._

And I'm holding an armful full of Potter, who won't stop wriggling and screaming, and I close my eyes and turn on the spot and pray to Merlin that the old fool had enough foresight to lift the wards before he—

I feel the tug behind my navel, and Potter goes slack.

_Oh, thank you, Albus._

But not really, because everything is ruined now, thanks to a small dispute in seconds and an old man who created two pieces of a puzzle out of the two most unlikely people in the world.

* * *

Packing my trunk is a wasted effort. Oblivious to my panic, Potter follows me around from room to room, screaming various unimportant and asinine questions in my general direction.

Where are we?

What are you doing?

Why the bloody fuck did you grab me?

"Potter!" I snap. "While I would love to play a theatrical game of 'act the bastardly villain' we don't exactly have time for this. Do me a favor. Stop. Speaking."

There is an uncomfortable five seconds of silence when he realizes that I know something he doesn't, and I think for a blessed moment that he's actually heeded my words.

It's only been minutes, but it feels like days, and I almost consider Apparating back to the tower and letting Bellatrix have at me. It would be oh so much more pleasant than attempting to get the boy to calm down. Then again, the sudden realization that he doesn't actually know the whole story seems to have silenced him well enough.

His mouth opens and closes. I can tell from his face that he is mistrustful. Good. He should be. I ignore the fact that even after so many Occlumency lessons I can see his feelings plain on his face. I mentally add teaching to the long list of things I hadn't planned to do this summer.

You look like a trout, I want to say, but time is ticking away in a frantic flurry of seconds that I wasn't planning on needing. Time itself seems to be crumbling apart and rushing between my fingers. I need some tea. Better. I need some scotch.

"Where are we?" he asks slowly, and I award him a point for keeping his anger in check. Then again, if he feels as numb as I do right now, then it is not that great a feat.

Spinner's End, I almost say, but I'm sure that that means nothing to the boy. "My home," I say instead. My voice sounds as though I've choked on sawdust. He nods and glances around.

Packing is pointless. I throw my empty trunk to the ground and grab him by the wrist and throw open the door. "Do you have any money?" I bark, because my mind is racing and there are so many eventualities that I had never even considered. His questions sting because I don't have answers to any of them.

He glances back at my house and snorts. "Yes. And a fair bit more than you do, by the looks of it." I'm sickened by how much his return to sloppy wit calms me. Pulls me back to reality. I tell myself that it's easier to deal with a brat than a young man with post traumatic stress disorder.

"Potter," I grunt. "We really do not have time for this." The other houses on the street are dark. I think of Albus's deluminator and wish that I had the luxury.

But for some strange, infuriating reason, this manages to provoke him. "We don't have time? Well, _why the bloody hell not, Snape?" _His voice is half sarcastic and half pleading. I bump Occulmency lessons up higher on the list of things to do.

"You have information I— _we_— need. You're going to give it to me," I repeat, dragging him out into the middle of the street with me. I'm not answering his question. I don't exactly care. We have a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds, until the street is swarming with Death Eaters. He does not understand, of course, that there was a way tonight was supposed to go.

If he doesn't do as I say, and soon, we're both going to end up dead before I can explain.

His eyes flick to the cobblestones. "I'm not supposed to," he mumbles. Stupid, annoying boy.

"As you might have noticed, Potter, tonight didn't go how it was _supposed_ to," I hiss, preparing to Apparate us out. Better to travel light, anyway, and what few possessions I might actually have desired to save are— it doesn't matter.

I freeze as the lights come on in the house across the way. Potter tries to squirm out of my grasp. "I will not wrestle a grown brat the street in the middle of the night while people are attempting to kill me. Now unless you want your limbs scattered across the Scottish countryside, I suggest you stand still."

I almost breathe a sigh of relief when the tug behind my navel signifies our departure.

* * *

I am not particularly fond of the Forest of Dean. I am more fond of it, however, then I am of having my arse handed to me by any of several Death Eaters who are certainly out for my blood. With a flick of my wand I cast a hasty tempus. It's only been an hour since everything went wrong.

Potter fidgets irritably across from me, staring in my general direction. "Why did you grab me?" he blurts out angrily, and I realize that even though he's looking at me, he's staring straight through me at Dumbledore's corpse. I take a deep breath. He would rather be rushing to the body now, bending alongside it, a martyr in the ways that he has lost all those he loves. The realization that I completely understand makes my stomach twist.

"It wasn't supposed to happen this way," I manage, even though I've said those words several different times already. He looks annoyed.

"Snape. What the hell are you talking about?" he snaps, but he doesn't look as though he expects an answer. I think about where I would be right now if everything had gone according to plan. Most likely in the dining hall at Malfoy Manor, with a watchful eye on Draco.

I wonder where Potter would be. Most likely mourning Albus properly, cursing my evil, twisted deceit from the bottom of his resilient heart.

"I was supposed to do it," I rasp, and he glances up at me through the curtain of his lashes.

"Excuse me?"

"I was supposed to kill him."

_Pull yourself together._

I cannot. Years and years, an entire life a spy, and I'm losing it over a sudden change in plans.

_Not entirely true._

Potter bristles. I wonder what exactly he has taken the wrong way this time. The air in our painstakingly conjured tent feels suddenly frigid. The claustrophobia that overcame me as I struggled to pack inside my home is returning. "You mean to tell me that Vol—"

"Do not say his name!" I hiss, but the reprimand does not touch him.

"—that _Voldemort"_ he puts emphasise on the word "wanted you to kill Dumbledore. And now that Draco did it instead, you're in danger and you've dragged me along into it with you."

I would like to highlight the ridiculousness of that statement. As far as I am concerned, it is Potter who has always dragged _me_ into danger. But that isn't the point.

"I mean to tell you," I say, bristling in turn, "that Albus wanted me to kill him, and now that Draco's done it instead, the carefully laid path to the Dark Lord's destruction is veering dangerously off course." That shuts him up.

Not for long enough. Never for long enough.

"Why did he want you to kill him?" I can hear the heartbreak in his voice, along with the question he is really asking. _Why didn't he tell me?_

There is a complicated answer, a long story on a dark night to a young man who I don't particularly care for. Instead, easily: "It was a mercy killing. Better I do it than anyone else. His hand, I'm sure you've noticed, he didn't have much longer, anyway."

He doesn't say anything, but rage pours off of him in waves. This is the most uncomfortable position I have been in in years. Spying is grueling work, but a life guarding my thoughts has not left me receptive to the easily bared emotions of adolescents.

"You were supposed to hate _me_," I clarify, so that he might direct his attention to the way things might have been different. I have no desire to spell the entire thing out for him. "But I was too late, and Draco—"

"No one thought he would actually do it, did they? And I was in the way. And you saved me. Again." He sounds defeated. I nod. It's nice to hear something that slightly resembles gratitude coming from the boy's traditionally defiant mouth. However, it seems a small victory, now, as the two of us sit, sharing a defeat on the ruddy dirt of the forest floor.

"So we're on the run now," he says. Good. He's finally caught on. I wonder what we're going to do. "I— do you know about the Horcruxes?" He asks the last so quietly that I'm sure I heard him wrong.

"Horcrux?" I snap, waiting for him to correct his own mistake. But he looks up at me with such bleak despair in his eyes that my heart nearly stops.

"Horcrux_es_," he corrects. "Seven."

_Seven_.

This night has gone worse than I could have possibly imagined.


	2. More Permanent Arrangement

**Where Severus is annoyed, Harry is an unhelpful brat, and the two end up slightly more comfortable than they began.**

* * *

Were I not so disillusioned with the non-existent rewards of complaining, I might whine and moan over the complete and absolute injustice of waking up at dawn and hiking through woodland for hours on end. I might drag my feet and take huge gulping breaths.

Or, I might suck it up and gather my cloak around me and decide that walking is better than ending up dead.

I chose the latter. Obviously. Does it surprise you that Potter chose the former?

I keep a necessary distance between us as we stalk through the trees. It seems quite possible that I have become physically allergic to his presence. The mere sound of his voice inspires a tremendous, overpowering sense of claustrophobia. I had believed that I was relived of my anxiety towards enclosed spaces long before adolescence. Perhaps I'm converting; maybe Harry Potter _can_ cause the impossible.

He takes another gulping breath behind me. It sounds like he is choking. I nearly laugh when I realize what a pleasant occurrence that would have seemed twenty-four hours ago, when he was telling his friends to 'keep an eye on me'. Twenty-four hours ago when I thought that murdering Albus would be the worst part of my week.

_When you didn't know about the Horcruxes._

Ah, yes. The Horcruxes.

Some people say that ignorance is bliss. I would have to agree, at least in this situation. I am trustworthy enough to be counted on as the face of his murderer, yet he trusts The Boy With An Attention Span of a Fish to go out and destroy seven Horcruxes? Will the injustices ever cease?

Of course not. Even now, poor ickle baby Potter is being forced to walk. Life obviously isn't fair.

He takes another shuddering breath.

"Potter," I warn, gathering my cloak around me and taking several longer steps to distance us. Behind me, he gulps in another gallon of air. "Potter!" I snap, whirling around to face him. "Are you a Quidditch player or not? Don't tell me that you wake up at five-thirty in the morning every Sunday to go share tea and biscuits with your team. If I can walk up a bloody hill, than so can you!"

I turn on my heel and stalk off, cursing myself when I glance over my shoulder to see if he's following. He is, keeping a respectful distance, and I notice with a grain of satisfaction that he's breathing normally.

Bloody drama queen.

"Where are we going?" I see that he plans to torture me with one sound or another. I don't answer.

"You know what?" he says suddenly, and I can hear the rustle of leaves when he stops in his tracks. My earlier relief at the apparent return of his insolence dissolves in a heartbeat.

"What?" I reply, even though I don't really want to know the answer. I'm going through the motions. Like I did with Albus. It occurs to me that the old man has sent the boy to haunt me. If I'm alive when this is all over I plan to make a heated visit to his grave.

"You're not keeping me here." It takes a fraction of a second too long for me to register his words. The trembling pop of Disapperation hits my ears and by the time I've turned around, he's gone. A flurry of leaves whistles noisily by.

"Potter," I say uselessly.

_Sod off._

Search for a renegade teenager is now at the top of my to do list.

* * *

_If you were he, where would you go?_

I would be so sickened by the mask of self-righteousness projected on me that I would jump off a cliff.

Somehow that doesn't seem right. For all of our supposed similarities, I'm having an awfully difficult time getting myself inside the boy's head. The delicious and amusing irony of that hits me as I think back to our Occulemency lessons. I never had any trouble getting into his head that way.

_Oh._

This sparks an idea. I think of all the flashes of memory that I witnessed. Of childish amusement and some seldom of abuse. Of his 'home' at the Dursely's and his refuge at the Burrow. His true home at Hogwarts. He wouldn't go to any of those now. While he is undoubtedly a moronic child, I find it difficult to imagine that he is unable to take some manner of care in his actions.

Which means that he is most likely somewhere that he has never been. Where better to hide than somewhere where no one would think to look. Fabulous.

I sit down at the base of a tree. My legs throb, but I haven't even noticed it until now. I search my memories for his memories. God. Our lessons were such a sick invasion of privacy. But necessary, of course.

Very necessary, I think, as I page through more and more, eliminating location after location. Nothing is featured prominently enough to get my attention, nothing except the repeated image of his parents, bright eyed and smiling, from the page of a scrapbook and the inside of that dusty, prying mirror. I snort. Sentimental boy.

Obviously. And now it's so clear that I can't believe I didn't see it before. I struggle to my feet in a rush of anticipation, hoping that the forty minutes it took for me to piece this together wasn't enough for him to be found by the wrong people.

_Forty minutes? You're losing your touch._

They'll all be looking for him now. The trace won't be lifted for another two months.

_You know the boy's birthday?_

It occurs to me now, far too late, how horrible a position he's in. My allegiance has always been ambiguous, and it cannot take long for everyone to find out that I've taken him. The Ministry will think I've kidnapped him. The Dark Lord will think that I'm protecting him.

There is no sense in wasting time. I pray to Merlin that I'm right.

I bid goodbye to the forest with a flick of my robes, imagining for no real reason that the leaves swirl idiotically, long after I've been swept away.

* * *

"You are almost too predictable."

He spins, drawing his wand, shivering expectantly in the surprisingly cool air. Isn't it supposed to be summer?

_Supposed to be. You're going to have to stop using that phrase._

His wand hand lowers right away, and I admit that I am surprised. "I can't do this alone," he whispers. Good. So he's found some sense in the last hour. He turns away from me, back to his parents' grave. I don't come here often.

It occurs to me that he's crying. I wish that for once something could go smoothly.

"Potter," I manage, solely because I don't want to remain out in the open for too much longer. I imagine that anyone with half a brain would come around to look for him here sooner or later. "I'm sorry for your loss."

He turns around again, wand tucked into his pocket. "About sixteen years too late, Snape," he says, walking past me. "Come on."

And in my state of complete and utter shock I can do nothing but comply.

I'm uncomfortable entering the Potters' house. The floor boards squeak beneath my feet. Someone should fix that. Damn. What am I thinking? No one ever comes in here.

Of course, that means that Potter has found us the perfect place to stay. Dilapidated as it is, full of mice and rats and bats and all manner of unspeakably uncomfortable memories. Or at least, that's what I imagine is going through Potter's mind as he carefully avoids my eye.

"Did you see the sign?" he asks. I nod. I noticed it on the way in. There are still bits of furniture placed about the rooms, a tableau of peaceful living, covered in a thick layer of dust. I step over a colorful, red ring. A child's toy.

I look at Potter. I think I'm going to vomit.

"Are you sure—?" I begin.

"Yeah." He cuts me off. "While we're here, I figure— I figure that I can fix the place up."

"Among other things," I mutter, coming back to myself. He turns and looks at me at last. I ignore his red eyes. "We have training to do. Along with searching, and destroying, and various numbers of things that are more important than fixing up your parents' tragic house."

He glares at me. "You're a bastard."

I nod. "Pleased that you noticed."

He storms up the stairs. Child. I hear a door slam in the hallway above.

"I'll see you tomorrow at five-thirty," I call up the stairs. He gives a non-committal grunt.

I sleep on the couch, because it would seem to me that the only other bedroom belongs to Lily and James. It is not a bed I particularly want to sleep in. Or a sort of desecration that I particularly want to participate in.

I can hear him walking around upstairs. Sleep won't come easily. My mind travels unwillingly back to the day I graduated Hogwarts. My return to Spinner's End. I found the rooms haunting memories of a childhood I loathed. I purged the entire place of memories after I found a stash of Tobias's beer cans beneath the sofa.

Somehow I feel that Potter will not be so quick to discard these memories. After all, they are more tragic than disturbing, filled with more sadness than disgust.

He settles after a while, and somehow this is all I need to hear. My eyelids close of their own will. I shake myself awake, however, because tomorrow I must teach him, something I had hoped I would never have to do again.

I think that I've been doing it wrong, and perhaps all he needs is a little incentive.

You see, before I became good at slipping through the cracks, unnoticed, I was quite an expert at provocation.


	3. Teach Me

**Teach Me: Where Harry learns, Severus gets angry, and Harry shows the first (and only) signs of manning up.**

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* * *

**

"Concentrate."

"I am."

"Harder."

"Why?" he shrieks at last, breaking eye contact and turning away from me. I smirk behind his back. Our bickering inspires some sense of normalcy. Being with the boy shouldn't be normal. I tell myself that it _isn't_.

_Isn't it?_

This is actually becoming enjoyable. Albus often said that I should teach the way children need to learn. It is my belief that the only children worth working with are the ones who are willing to learn the way I teach. However, desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Because the most fundamental skill when hiding from people who want to kill you is the ability to hide your emotions. It's the basis for _everything else._ And of course, more importantly to _you_, if you learn, we will return to Occlumency, and _if_ you manage to remove me from your head, I'll owe you favor. To be redeemed immediately, of course." I refuse to owe another life debt to a Potter.

He blinks. "This is a trick." He says that to me everyday. I'm tired of hearing it. His constant uncertainty is insanely annoying.

"How so?"

"You know that you're going to win. You just want to play with my brain."

I snort. "Do not assume, Potter, that I am even the tiniest bit interested in what is going on within your simple mind. I am _attempting_ to give you some incentive. If you do not wish to, then I can return to my… original methods."

"God. Fine," he barks. "Whatever."

"You're angry," I remark.

"Shit," he curses. "This is moronic."

"Only because you're making it so."

"Fuck you."

The boy is so easy to provoke, and our past Occlumency lessons provide an abundance of new material.

"Potter," I say. "Who is the girl in your memories?" This is always easy bait.

"What?" he asks, genuinely confused. After all, he knows more than one young lady. Am I referring to Hermione Granger? No.

"The one I've seen you kissing." His eye twitches. It's all in the phrasing. Highlighting the fact that I've _seen_ it. That it isn't private. That he doesn't know _how_ to keep it private. It breaks him.

He mumbles something, and I can tell that he is concentrating on restraining his blush. Still, this is progress, the first time his face has not turned beet red.

"How was it?" I continue, as if it's the most normal question in the world. I pick at my nails, watching him out of the corner of my eye.

"Excuse me?" he gasps out, his eyebrows leaping into his hairline.

"Lesson One: Never underestimate your opponent."

He glares at me. I will admit that I almost smile.

* * *

It's easy to lose track of time. I cannot say how long we've been here, because even in the lazier summers of my past, I've found it easy to forget myself without the rigid schedule of classes dictating my free time.

I nicked a Muggle newspaper form the lawn in the house next to ours yesterday. Lowered to petty theft. Disgusting. The date at the top revealed that we have been in hiding for two months. Goddamn. It hasn't been that long.

_Time flies._

I find that I've adjusted almost too easily to Potter's presence. He does manage to keep out of my way. He spends his free time fiddling in the upstairs rooms, cleaning up and refurbishing, while I prefer to keep to the Library, a room untouched by the murders in this house's past. I'm surprised at the number of interesting books here, because I never took Potter The Original as much of a reader. I suppose that Lily might have read them, but when I open one I often find that they are brand new.

Trapped in time, like the rest of this godforsaken place.

"What?" I snap. He's reading one of the books with browned pages and dog-eared corners. I picked it up, once, when he'd left in on his favorite chair. It is a Quidditch book, and someone, most likely his father, had scrawled messy notes in the margins.

But now he is pretending to read, peering instead over the top of the book in my general direction.

"Hmm?" he says, as if he's just been startled out of a daydream. He's getting good at this. Granted, it's taken months, and I know the boy so well that his near perfect defenses are easily read. However, I cannot help the twang of pride that rumbles in my chest whenever his passive face greets my queries.

I will admit, reluctantly, that it can be disturbing at times. I long, almost eerily, for the days when the simplest of taunts revealed his emotions in a heartbeat. I long for that reliable bit of control. It's a shame, really, when my desires conflict with the necessities of our situation.

He's smiling. He can tell when he annoys me. I hate that.

"You're pretending to read," I point out. He shrugs.

"I want to go out," he replies, fingering one of the pages in his book.

"No." The answer has been 'no' every single time he's asked. I refuse to leave the protection of the wards without complete faith in his ability to block others from his mind. I've told him this. Again and again. And still we have yet to begin work on Occlumency. He is reluctant. He is afraid. I cannot help my curiosity; I wonder what memories he keeps that I have not seen.

How he has managed to get under my skin eludes me.

"Professor," he says. His voice is devoid of emotion. I feel sick.

"What?" I snap. I prefer the days when he leaves me to my books.

"Can we start working on Occlumency again?" I would expect sheepishness in his voice, or a blush on his face. I glance up. Neither. However, a smirk spreads across my face. I've been waiting for his surrender.

"As you wish."

* * *

"You're not trying," I sigh. He huffs and puffs and collapses back on the sofa. "Come on, Potter."

He blinks up at me, glaring. I've stopped pointing out the moments when his control wavers and his emotions shine through. He is not perfect. I do not ask him to be. And in return he stops reminding me that his bursts of embarrassment, amusement, exhaustion and pride seem to relax me.

_How healthy of you._

"Alright," he says, standing up. "Go ahead."

As if I needed his permission.

_You don't need anyone's permission anymore._

That's true, too. "On the count of three. One. Two. Three. _Legilimens!"_

I step into his mind, and what a jumbled mess it is. Like the floor of the room of a spoiled child. I forage past the images I have already seen, ignoring the boy's fat cousin and those photographs of his parents. I ignore the memories of Albus, which surge to the forefront more often these days. Undoubtedly in response to—

_No. Not here._

I draw myself in further, past the image of him kissing the Ravenclaw. Old news. And there he is with the Weasley girl. I move closer. This kiss is different than the other, less chaste, more heated. Now he's pushing her away. She's screaming something. I can sense waves of dissatisfaction rolling off of him, and then the larger waves of his emotions now. Anger, embarrassment. It's inebriating.

I pull myself reluctantly away from the scene. The Weasley girl has left him sitting alone.

I open my eyes. He's breathing heavily again, collapsed once more on the sofa.

"Potter," I bark.

"No," he moans. "Just. No."

My lips curls. He is disgusting to me when he's like this. "You weak, sniveling, little child," I hiss, and his head snaps up. A reaction. At last. "I will not sit here and watch you wallow in self-pity. You refuse to make an effort. You refuse to listen or to learn. You spoiled little brat! Albus taught you to expect a song and dance from anyone who desires your attention. But so help me, Potter, now that he is gone, I refuse to play these games. You will close your mind even if I have to use a rock to bang all the memories out of it!"

Now _I_ am breathing heavily. He stares at me, seemingly dumbfounded, before he masters his expression and chooses to stand.

"Again," he says steadily, bracing himself.

I smile.

_Legilimens._


	4. Make It Stop

**Make It Stop: Where Severus is tired of listening to screaming, Harry ends up in various states of undress, and the two are forced to make an abrupt change of scenery.**

**

* * *

**

He's screaming. Oh, God, he's screaming. This is the third time this week. More sickening, however, is that his screams have come to be the soundtrack to the burning pain that awakens me every now and again.

I stand up and clutch my arm, stumbling into the boy's room. His green eyes glow in the dark.

This is the first time he has been aware enough to focus on me. Usually he thrashes, screaming and screaming until his throat is too raw, startling awake with dreams he cannot remember. But now the house has gone eerily silent as he stares at me with those big, green eyes.

Usually I leave. I always leave, because why am I expected to pity him? Why does he deserve it? I don't think he even wants it. I always leave, without concern, and wait for him to ride it out. But he's just staring, face blank, and I wonder if I even heard him.

"You were screaming," I say quietly, and he shakes his head in the darkness.

"I wasn't." His voice is normal, albeit sleep-ridden. It occurs to me that I've become so accustomed to his shouts that the searing pain in my arm has supplied them. I can't afford to have an overactive imagination.

"You're embarrassed," he mumbles, collapsing back on the bed and throwing an arm over his face. That's when I realize that he's naked, with the covers thrown haphazardly to cover his more important bits.

I slam the door to his room behind me.

* * *

I wake up at five-thirty on the lumpy couch, as usual.

_At least you're fully clothed._

True.

Light streams in splotches through the grimy windows. My mental alarm is something I've always found incredibly entertaining, however, at the moment I am more concerned with the sound coming from the room above me. I creep forward, wand drawn, to stand at the foot of the stairs. The sound stops and padding footsteps crawl along the hallway.

I check the wards. Everything seems sound, but that noise—

"Oi!" Potter rounds the corner, wearing nothing but a towel. He scrambles to hide his chest from me, but the towel isn't large enough, and if he pulls it even the tiniest bit higher, I'll—

_No._

"Potter," I snap, attempting to hide my embarrassing overreaction to what was obviously the sound of running water. I'm surprised that he's finally figured out how to fix the plumbing. "It's not like I've never seen a boy's chest before."

That came out badly. His mouth hangs open, and he stares at me for a moment before dissolving into laughter. "Yeah, I bet," he chuckles, resuming his trip down the hallway. I damn the color that rises to my cheeks. I haven't been sleeping enough.

With a flick of my wand, he falls flat on his arse. "Lesson Two: Carry your wand with you at all times."

He stands up angrily and yanks his wand out from the side of his towel. Then he waves if down at me with a 'see?' expression on his face. I roll my eyes.

"Lesson Three: Don't trust anybody."

"Oh yeah," he says sarcastically. "Like I trust you."

"You're still in a towel," I point out, folding my blessedly clothed arms over my wonderfully clothed chest.

"Disappointed?" he quips, and a huge blush rises up on his cheeks. "Professor—" he begins hastily. I have no interest in listening to him backtrack.

"Clothes. Now. Downstairs." He opens his mouth as if he's about to say something fresh. "Downstairs _after,"_ I clarify, and that shuts him up.

* * *

The pain rips through me. His anger stabs me like a knife. I curl in on myself and pretend that I don't hear the boy screaming. Shut up. Shut up shut upshutup_shutupshutup._

_Goddamit, shut up!_

I feel like I'm going to explode. I curse the boy. I curse the Dark Lord. I curse Albus where he is rotting in his blissfully peaceful grave.

Goddamn you.

_Goddamn you all._

* * *

We haven't practiced in days. Neither of us is sleeping.

Neither of us mention it.

I close my eyes when he's not looking and pray to Merlin for a wink of rest tonight.

* * *

Tragedy strikes like a cold shock of water. Potter is crying weakly in the Library. That alone keeps me out.

I sit by the window in in the living room and watch the rain pour down outside. My fingers rest against the dirty panes. This house might have been beautiful. I think of Lily. It has been such a long, long time. I still shudder to think of what she became.

Her final words come back to me in the whispering wilderness of the deserted house. I turn to look at the wild crack of light peeking out from under the Library door. Potter throws something in the other room. It shatters against the wall. A vase, maybe? I hear him curse, and then the muffled mumbling of reparo.

Quick to anger. I shake my head and turn back to the window. Like mother, like son.

My fingertips come away dirty. I blow on them lightly, pointlessly, and bits of dust fly like little secrets before my eyes. I think of James now. I think of the way he looked at her.

I think of—

_You wonder._

I wonder. The boy stands. I can hear his footsteps approaching the door. The crack of light widens. I watch it through hooded eyes. He steps out into the hallway and even in the darkness I can see that his eyes are red with tears.

I don't _care_. Doesn't anyone understand?

It occurs to me, rather unpleasantly, that _he_ understands. He nods stiffly in my direction and turns to walk up the stairs. He makes no comment.

I turn back to the window. He understands me. I understand him. We understand each other. I blame confined spaces. I blame Albus. I blame pain and circumstance and the fact that I'm alive. I blame the fact that I haven't had an honest drink in ages.

I wish, horribly, that there was somewhere I could go to be alone. Even I am not beyond bouts of nostalgic sorrow.

I lean my head against the cool glass of the window and wonder what would have happened if Lily had never insulted me so. I wonder about James, too.

The other lights in the house go out, and I dream uneasily about my own vanity.

* * *

He's screaming again. I've stopped even going to check on him. Let him suffer. Why should I care? I roll over and attempt to ignore the pain. I woke as I was attempting to claw the skin off of my forearm in my sleep.

_It's your own fault_.

Potter shrieks again. I close my eyes. My head is pounding. My heart beats painfully along with it. Sometimes I wish it would just—

_Stop._

"Professor?" My eyes snap open. He's standing by the side of the couch. His sheets are wrapped loosely around his body. His bare shoulders are illuminated by the moonlight streaming through the window. His forehead is bright red, and I can see the careful markings where he was clawing at the flesh. "I had a dream."

I groan and close my eyes again. "Lovely Potter. Go back to sleep." Let me know if you actually _remember _one.

"No." He grabs my arm. My left arm. I snatch it back angrily, pulling out my wand with the other.

"Potter!" I roar, drawing myself to my full height. "How dare you—"

"They're coming. They're coming here." His voice lacks any emotion. I want to slap him across the face. I want to tell him to be afraid. Some logical part of my brain tells me that he is afraid, that he just refuses to show it. But the other part of my brain is heading straight into cool survival mode.

I wish I could leave him here and let them tear him apart.

He blinks at me. His eyes flick to my wand hand. "You have your wand," he comments blankly.

I have reach out to grab him, to Apparate us somewhere, anywhere, but he catches me first and turns on the spot and I'm being pulled along.

It occurs to me far to late that the boy is wearing only a duvet.

* * *

A/N: Reviews are appreciated. *hint hint*


	5. Poster Boy

**Poster Boy: Where Harry makes a good decision, a generous offer, and Severus thinks back to his childhood.**

* * *

How a house can end up in worse shape _after_ it is rid of a filthy dog baffles me. The boy and I stand in the doorway of Number 12, Grimmauld Place and blink at the dusty floor and pale blue taint of night that covers the walls. His rasping breath is the only sound.

The house is obviously deserted. Big surprise. I would expect no less. With Dumbledore dead, there is nothing keeping me from shouting the Order's location from the very rooftops. And it would appear that I _have_, indeed, kidnapped The Boy Who Lived. How completely contemptible of me.

"Potter," I whisper, preparing to offer a reluctant congratulations on his quick thinking. However, he chooses that exact moment to step into the entrance hall. A floorboard creaks and dust shifts down upon us from the ceiling. Something is wrong. "Potter," I say again, but my tongue is no longer following my instructions.

Something is moving in the corner, rushing toward us at inhuman speed. It lurches into the faint light from the open door, and Potter gives a strangled sob. It looks exactly like him, albeit dusty and inhuman and sickeningly disfigured. It takes rasping breaths that echo Potter's.

It speaks, suddenly, in a voice that somehow manages to be disgusting and mangled and Potter's very own all at once.

"Severus Snape," it chokes, raising a hand to point a dusty finger in our direction. Potter stumbles back hastily, crushing his bare back against mine. The duvet has slipped precariously low.

_Not. Important._

"You killed me," rasps the Potter look alike, reaching out to touch him— us— me?

"I'm not Snape!" the real Potter cries.

_Don't act like it's such a bad thing._

The figure stumbles, crumbling and exploding in a puff of dust, even as it takes the final steps to reach us. Potter takes a deep breath of relief, even as Mrs. Black's portrait begins her wild shrieks. The boy, in his panic, has not yet realized that the danger has past. Either that, or he hasn't realized that the surface he's leaning against is my chest, not a wall.

"Potter," I grunt, shoving him off of me. He stumbles and falls, the duvet pooling around him. "Watch yourself," I hiss. That my tongue is working at all fills me with the utmost glee.

A blush colors his cheeks, and he pulls himself up off the floor, grumbling. "I'll deal with that," he mumbles, nodding his head toward Mrs. Black's portrait.

"Might want to put on some clothes first," I remark and go off to find the library.

* * *

"Listen," he says. His head is peeking through the door to the library. I find myself wondering whether he's put on clothes or not. I nod at him to continue. I really don't care what he has to say. I've set up extensive wards, and I'm relying, rather uncomfortably, on the other Order members to not spread the location of Headquarters, deserted or not. I do not need his obnoxious blabbering cutting into my already exhausting solace.

_Fuck off._

"Yes, Potter?"

"Listen," he repeats. "I know that you used to come here for meetings and junk, but— I mean— I don't know if you had a room or anything to stay in overnight."

I raise an eyebrow. This isn't what I was expecting. He seems genuinely uncomfortable making a kind gesture toward me. At least, that is what I expect he is attempting to do.

"Anyway," he mumbles. His eyes flick toward the ground. "If you want it, there's a room upstairs that's decorated in all Slytherin colors. I think it belonged to Sirius's brother."

_Regulus_.

My chest tightens.

"I guess what I'm saying is that it probably beats sleeping on the couch."

I snort. "Thank you, Potter," I reply, shaking my head. My eyes dip to my book, and he closes the door. If he thinks I didn't see his grin, then he is even stupider than I ever imagined.

"Potter!" I cry as an afterthought, and the door opens again. Quickly. A little too quickly. He blushes again at my raised eyebrow. Then he bites his lip and regains control of himself. Good. Better.

"What?"

"Where do you sleep?"

He blinks, then narrows his eyes. "Why do you want to know?"

I smile, the first real, nasty smile that I've been able to manage in weeks. "No reason. I just wondered if you enjoy the mutt's pornographic posters as much as he did."

His face turns the color of a ripe tomato. The door slams behind him, and I can hear him mumbling something about tearing them down.

_He's got some morals._

I think of his role models: James, Albus, Black. I let out a barking laugh that I imagine chases him the rest of the way up the stairs.

He could only have gotten it from me.

* * *

I am reluctant to open the door. I hate to say it, but I am more frightened now than I have been all throughout tonight's events. This is a room I haven't visited in all together too many years.

The door creaks when I push through it. There is an even thicker layer of dust covering the furnishings, and I draw my wand, just in case something is lurking here, too. But the dust is settled, silent and does not rise to threaten me. I pocket my wand and glance around.

The Slytherin banners, while faded, still hang proudly from the walls. A couple of picture are lying on his desk, along with several crumpled pieces of parchment. I recognize one of the photos. I, myself, smile from within it. My arm is wrapped around James Potter's neck, and Sirius stands on his other side, glaring uncomfortably at the two of us. Regulus took this photo. Goddamn. This was so long ago.

I fold the photo carefully into the pocket of my robes. The rest of the room is rather barren, aside from the small bed with the green and silver sheets. I sit down, running my fingers along the smooth plaster of the wall. I remember years ago when I would hide up here, laughing away the hours with Regulus. He was so easy to please. Sirius would bang on the wall, furious. At least, until he ran away.

I imagine Potter sleeping on the other side of the wall, and for both our sakes, I pray that he sleeps through the night.

I extinguish the light, and as an afterthought, I cast a silencing charm. Whether Potter sleeps through the night or not, _I_ am going to.


End file.
